TENACITY is a virtue

Some of you are chuckling as you see this picture of the mouse. For those that don't know, one of our chorale members has had one of these unwanted visitors in his house for several days. He has tried EVERYTHING to get rid of it. The mouse is tenacious. So far the score is mouse -3, human-0. How could something so small and insignificant get so tenacious?

For those of you that need a refresher in the definition of that word, it means holding firmly, tough, persistent, stubborn. The Thesaurus lists words like bulldoggish, steadfast, resolute, true.

So what does any of this mean to you? Well, in the most immediate scheme of things, your tenacity in "hanging in there" through tough, challenging rehearsals is beginning to pay off.

I heard it today, both in Chorale rehearsal and in frequency rehearsal, and I know YOU heard it, too. Your section leaders are tenacious...their work is paying off. Heavens knows that Laura and I are tenacious. I've been called worse than a bulldog for my stubborn insistence on excellence (same first letter, different word). But anything worth having is worth exercising the virtue of tenacity to achieve it.

In the GREATER scheme of things, some of you are exercising tenacity in getting your degree~against all odds. It might be lack of family understanding, lack of funds, skills that are tough to master, illnesses, life. But I repeat~anything worth HAVING is worth being tenacious about. That includes relationships (but that is another post).

So, as the cliche goes, hang in there. You are not alone and you have advocates ALL around, ALL the time. Your extended musical family (fill in the ensemble of your choice) is with you.

Always.

Rediscovering Joy

Memory lane. I was walking down this twisty path in my mind the other day. Some of the students that I taught years ago when I was a high school choral teacher "found" me on Facebook. One actually had to send me a picture of what they looked like when they were in my group, because they had (of course) changed. Some I recognized immediately.

So, before class I got my old scrapbook from that period of my life and began looking at those sweet faces. LOL (as you guys say) at the jokes;

bittersweet at the ones that are no longer with us. Then I started thinking about how it began here at TROY. And I found this picture of the early Chamber Choir. We've come a long way since those days. But do you see the joy on their faces? Hopefully, that is still in place in every rehearsal, in every encounter.

Sometimes we lose the joy in our music making and have to rediscover it. Like the small group that practiced (I'm told) for over an hour in the stairwell leading to the basement in Smith Hall.

Rediscovering the joy of making music together...unplanned...spontaneously...like an organism that is coming alive and growing and multiplying.

Hope you rediscover joy today!

Sun, steel, and shadow

Here is definition of "dissonance":



n.
1. A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
2. Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict
3. Music A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

We are certainly singing a lot of music that contains wonderful dissonant passages. Stop and think of your favorite right now (Cancion de cuna? Adoramus? EVERYTHING that frequency is singing?) I'm not really sure why dissonance gets a "bad rap". It is the spice in the music. It is the "sturm und drang". I don't think I'd enjoy choral music nearly as much if everything was "pollyanna diatonic"! Somewhere along the way, however, we have lost the ability to enjoy dissonance.

To be able to hold our own part amidst the dissonance

To appreciate the tension in the dissonance.

To appreciate the release from that tension.

We water down our understanding of music to simple (and simply WRONG) comparisons such as "HAPPY = MAJOR; SAD = MINOR (class, hear me shriek in horror at this).

See the photo at the top of this post? My 12 year old loves to take photographs of the most unusual things. This is one of my favorites. But what is interesting is WHERE this picture was snapped. We were inside the butterfly atrium at Calloway Gardens. Now, one would expect a kid to take pictures of the butterflies, right? The OBVIOUS, pretty things. Not my kid. She took pictures of falling water and of the sun coming through the geometric design of the building. She took pictures of the shadows that the sun and the geometry made. Not the simple, pretty diatonic stuff but the product of sun and steel and shadow.

The dissonances.

And they are beautiful.

Remember that the next time you sing.

Perpetual Optimism

The older I get, the more optimistic I become.

It's true.

That is why the poem we sang (Afternoon on a Hill) speaks to me so much. Read the poem in its entirety:



AFTERNOON ON A HILL

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass
And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show
Up from the town
I will mark which must be mine
And then start down!

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

It embodies optimism. And contentment. And observation (the kind that you CANNOT have when you are busy texting while walking!). Reverance. Awe. And gratitude.

Since I'm big on "transfer" (in other words...everything relates to everything), I was thinking about this song that we rehearsed today and I immediately flipped through my itunes library to find a 1972 song by the late Dan Fogelberg. I happened to LOVE him "back in the day". So, I played TO THE MORNING and realized that it had the same kind of optimism that draws me to the Millay poem. The lyrics, although much more simplistic, were accompanied by a lovely, haunting melody (go sample it for yourself.) I wrote out the lyrics for you below:



TO THE MORNING

Watching the sun,
Watching it come~watching it come up over the rooftops.
Cloudy and warm, maybe a storm
You can never quite tell from the morning

And it’s going to be a day, there is really no way to say no to the morning.
Yes, it’s going to be a day, there is really nothin’ left to say but “come on, morning!”

Waiting for mail, maybe a tale from an old friend, or even a lover.
Some days there’s none, but we have fun thinking of all who might have written.

And it’s going to be a day, there is really no way to say no to the morning.
Yes, it’s going to be a day, there is really nothin’ left to say but “come on, morning!”

And maybe there are seasons, and maybe they change.
And maybe to love is not so strange.

The suns of the day, now they hurry away
Now they are gone until tomorrow
One day will break, and you will wake and you will rake your hands across your eyes and realize

That it’s going to be a day, there is really no way to say no to the morning
Yes, it’s going to be a day, there is really nothin’ left to say, but “come on, morning!”

And maybe there are seasons, and maybe they change.
And maybe to love is not so strange.

~Dan Fogelberg


So remember, amidst all your collegiate dramas and life angst...morning always comes. And we can approach each day with gratitude. Or not.

I choose "I will be the gladdest thing under the sun". Hope you do, too!

I love my job . . . most of the time

OK, today we take a break from CREATIVE HABIT and talk about what happened in rehearsal.

First of all, when I walked in 10 minutes early, here is what I saw: John was vacuuming, Sarah was writing the order of the rehearsal on the board, Rebecca was hole-punching materials for today, Adrian was getting ready to begin warmups. It was a little beehive of activity. Singers were arriving EARLY, getting their music ready. Adrian turned and said "Dr. O, can ya feel the love in here?"

Yes, I could.

And I walked back to get something in the office thinking: "God, I love my job.
I have the BEST bunch of students in the world".

We accomplished most of what I wanted to in rehearsal today, although I can tell that some of you are actually learning your notes and others need to.

I'm itching to move past the "note phase" to the "making music" phase, aren't you?
It isn't happening fast enough for me. Though faster in Chorale than in frequency, I'm afraid. (that's gotta be another post)

Hence the title of this blog. I love my job...most of the time. I get frustrated at pacing. Most conductors deal with this delicate balance. Trying to get an entire folder of music ready (but not too ready) at the right time.

Peaking too early is not good.

We become stagnant and our performance is lackluster.

Peaking too late is not good.

We experience lost opportunity and regret.

So, we rely on the TEAM to catch the vision of the conductor and then rely on the TEAM to slog it out in practice (both individual training and group practice) and then we rely on the TEAM to show up for the game and to give 110%.

Most of you do and I thank you for it. Making music with you is a privilege.

To those of you that need to step up your game, let me remind you... "Coach O" can't do it all. The first string members get tired if they have to do all the blocking and tackling. Everyone should be first string in chorale...

Go team!

Dive in~Step back.

Tharp goes on to say, “When I’ve learned all I can at the core of a piece, I pull back and become the Queen of Detachment. I move so far back that I become a surrogate for the audience. I see the work the way they will see it. New, fresh, objectively. In the theater, I frequently go to the back and watch the dancers rehearse. If I could watch from farther away, from outside the theater in the street, I would. That’s how much detachment I need from my work in order to understand it” (Creative Habit, Page. 41).

So, if you substitute “hear the work the way the audience will hear it”…that describes what every conductor has to do. Sometimes conductors get way too focused upon the nuance of the hands, the cutoffs, the need to micromanage the choir members with flicks and pulled lines, and facial pleading (HA!). Ever wonder why sometimes I just quit conducting, step to the back of the room, or the front, or even the hallway? Sometimes I cup my hands behind my ears (no, I’m not going deaf…yet!); sometimes I lean back against the piano, close my eyes, and attend to what you are doing. Granted, you are all kinda on your own during these times…but all the better. I’m trying to see that whole forest; to hear the overall effect; to listen for…what?

A goose bump moment?

Maybe.

An aural sample that you are applying what you’ve learned.

Probably.

Musical understanding?

Absolutely.

“Dive in. Step back. Dive in. Step back.” (page 41).

It is a delicate dance that we all do in every rehearsal.

Isn’t it grand?

INSANITY!

I chuckled when I read Tharp’s self-revelatory statement on page 40: “I don’t want them [the dancers] merely involved. I’m looking for insane commitment” HA! Singers, do you ever get that idea from me? Come on, admit it! I know that you think “Sheesh, Dr. O, you really expect us to sound like that?”

Yes.

If you read Tharp’s next statement, you’ll learn something about me. ”I’m no less strict with myself. I’m always taking temperature readings of my commitment…and pushing myself to be more committed than anyone else.”

If I ask it of you, I must model it. If I ask for you to be prepared, then I must be. If I ask you to work on your craft, I must do so. If I ask you to treat others like you would like to be treated, I must model that behavior.

Insane commitment.

Why not?

Dr. O

Aural painting

On page 27 of CREATIVE HABIT, Tharp says this: "When I listen to music, I don't multitask; I simply listen. Part of it is my job: I listen to music to see if I can dance to it. But another part is simple courtesy to the composer. I listen with the same intensity the composer exerted to string the notes together. I'd expect the same from anyone watching my work. I certainly wouldn't approve if someone read a book while my dancers were performing". That being said, listen (REALLY listen to this): http://www.waltonmusic.com/Sound12/AfternoonOnaHill/

In rehearsal yesterday, we talked about the aural "painting" that Eric Barnum uses throughout this lovely music~the little aural painting, for example, at the bottom of page 8 reminds me of a Dickensian village at dawn...one candle at a time in the cottage windows, until (at the top of page 9), the village is warm and bright and inviting.

This is the imagery I use as a conductor. It might remind you of something entirely different, based upon that powerful thing called memory and your experiences. Music~it is a language that you MUST attend to...whether in casual listening, in rehearsal, or in performance. Make that your goal this weekend. Dr. O

Mystical wonder

To better prepare us for a greater understanding and appreciation of the pieces in our repertoire, I plan on talking about certain ones in more detail from time to time. I’ve been gratified by your reactions to the John Tavener piece, Mother of God, Here I Stand. You’ve noted that this is a work within a work within a work~ in other words, it is one of the Five Anthems that is part of The Veil of the Temple. Most of the recordings that are available are a 2-disc, 2 hour condensation of what was a massive choral event. The Veil of the Temple premiered on June 27-28, 2003 at the Temple Church in London. You read that right; the premiere lasted 8 hours. Although based upon the traditional mass, the music is organized into eight cycles with mystical texts taken from Sufi, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox writers. This All Night Vigil must have been quite a listening and exhausting experience! I urge all vocal/choral majors (and anyone else interested) to visit this site to hear samples from the Veil (http://www.amazon.com/John-Tavener-Veil-Temple-Hybrid/dp/B0007DAYY2)
And this site (http://www.chesternovello.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2441&State_2934=2&discId_2934=976) to learn more about the work.

I encourage you to listen to the unique, mystical, minimal, and at times vocally CRAZY-demanding works of Tavener. You’ll be richer for it!
Thank you for yesterday’s rehearsal. You were focused and we got through the plan (which always makes me very happy!). Bring that same gameplan to rehearsal tomorrow! We will miss our band folks as they travel to BG and those that are battling the flu…but the rest of us can work on our craft with an intensity that will benefit all!
Dr. O